Have you ever been forced to skip a meal, either because of financial deficiencies or other factors that hindered your ability to find a job? Unemployment is significant because people can’t always find jobs to help them survive. With solutions such as job training skills, however, the hardships of unemployment can be eradicated.
Imagine you get kicked out on the streets because you can’t afford the bills. There are a multitude of Washington, DC citizens who are going through challenges of trying to find jobs and cannot afford food, goods, or homes. DCist tells the story of Taalib-Din, a DC construction worker, as follows: “He hasn’t been able to find a source of income since he lost his job, and he’s running out of options. He says he’s been skipping meals as his groceries run low, and he’s worried his car will be repossessed because he can’t make payments. He rents a room on East Capitol Street, and says his landlord has been pressuring him about paying rent.” This articulates an effect unemployment has. The DCist article goes on to quote him as saying, “‘Last night I didn’t eat at all,…I’m down to the last bowl because I’m trying to save what little food I got. Some days I’ll try to fast, some days I’ll eat a little — it’s just getting rough. I don’t know what to do.’” Ultimately, the unemployment rates in Washington, DC are too high, and this problem needs to be solved.
Because of the high unemployment rates in Washington, DC, the University of the District of Columbia created the UDC Division of Workforce Development and Lifelong Learning, or WDLL. Its goal is to “[provide] District of Columbia residents with job skills training that [enable] them to pursue employment opportunities, [focusing on] industries that provide the highest number of employment opportunities within the District and in the metropolitan area.” The creation of this service illustrates that Washington, DC has ways to assist people without jobs, and when the DC budget comes up for a vote, they should not decrease funding for Workforce Development.
To wrap it all up, unemployment is an enormous obstacle in Washington, DC. Washington, DC has many ways to prevent unemployment from becoming a common event. One resolution to this problem is Workforce Development and Lifelong Learning. This helps by giving people training skills for jobs. I hope DC maintains this program in the face of potential budget cuts, and I hope people take advantage of it.
